100 days of painting. Ready or not! Here I come!
March 18, 2019
I am both excited and a bit nervous about taking on the challenge of 100 days of painting! I’ve heard a lot of artists recommend this exercise.
From what I understand you’re supposed to do 100 paintings in 100 days. The idea is to allow yourself to be creative and flow without judgement. I love the idea of pushing myself to be experimental and try new things, and I want to keep this a positive experience. So, I’m changing the rules a bit to fit my life and my schedule.
The last thing I want to do is stress myself out over my fine art—one of the most important avenues for allowing more peace, joy and flow into my life. So, I’m making this challenge into 100 paintings/sketches in 100 days, but they don’t need to be consecutive days. If my work load is super heavy one day, I’ll skip that day. I’m not going to just jam this into my life. I’m going to flow it in. If it takes me 300 days to complete the 100 days, so be it. As long as I’m free and flowing, it’s all good.
Plus, I’m still working on my swatches/in-depth color study, and I’ll still be working on more detailed paintings that require many more than one sitting. And I’m still doing paid graphic design work, plus I’m a mom and have our home projects and family life to keep up. Just a few things on my plate.
I am super excited about this project! I expect it will give me many opportunities to try different media, styles, colors, techniques and subjects. But most importantly it will force me to push myself while allowing me a safe space to fail gracefully as I push beyond my comfort zone. Pushing beyond my comfort zone and allowing myself to make ugly paintings is a great way to grow as an artist. I’m working on honing in on a style, and I think this challenge will give me a big boost in progressing to this goal.
Day 1 was completed while waiting for my daughter during swim practice. One way or another I’ll get my painting days in when I can. I started with watercolor pencils since I’m wasn’t at home. It was good to work with pencil and water. It’s all about trying something new…
So, here I go!